


cultural exchange

by aestheticisms (R_Vienna)



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Cultural Differences, Friends With Benefits, Gen, Post-Event
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 17:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17288423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Vienna/pseuds/aestheticisms
Summary: Beatrix takes pity on Cassius for his unfortunate self, how grateful should he be that she is offering her help on his quest to bed Eustace—!(or, a useless snippet on my new favorite best bad friends.) bea+cass, mentions of zetabea and yusucass.





	cultural exchange

**Author's Note:**

> ME, AT 3AM: what if cassius and bea made out to cuck zetayusu for NOT coming home during my failed spark 
> 
> sorry god

cultural exchange 

— or in which beatrix teaches cassius fossil dweller courtship customs and traditions, sort of. 

* * *

 

He ghosts his fingertips over her lips, pressing down lightly when he meets the edge. Beatrix is still, uncharacteristically so, with a mix of expectation and caution in her demeanor. Cassius finds that the most curious thing of all, for someone who was energy incarnate, an overflow of emotion and recklessness, the bearer of the seventh Automagod’s will—she’s rather shy.  
  
“If you’re going to just stare, maybe I should head back...” She complains a lot, too. It’s a completely different side of her. While in action she’s the first one to go, last one to come back. The missions they’ve shared together could be considered an utter failure of teamwork, but they always accomplish their objective. It’s all so...fascinating. Every aspect.  
  
It makes it difficult not to tease her. The gap is so wide.  
  
“I was under the impression you were going to teach me fossil dweller traditions of courtship.”  
  
Rose blossoms on her cheeks. The pink dances across her skin. When he goes to take his hand away from her face, she takes it back, and laces their fingers together. Her nails are groomed, kept short and polished, he’s seen Zeta’s matching set. Hmm. So, perhaps touch is the most important aspect of this ritual. She spends a lot of time mapping him, she runs her unoccupied hand over his body. Beatrix starts with his face (he notices how her gaze lingers over the scar that brought them all together), and she trails down his chest where she makes an effort to pull his robes off his shoulders.  
  
“Hmm, I see.”  
  
“What?”  
  
She makes a little exasperated noise his when she has to let go of his hand to untie the elegant knot at his waist, she is not deterred even when he shrugs off the tunic with relative ease. It irritates her, she pouts and pushes him back down on her nondescript regulation bed.  
  
“Do you like looking at the people you are copulating with—?” Beatrix shushes him with her hand, covering his mouth.  
  
“Don’t say it like that!”  
  
He carefully peels her hand back to retort.  
  
“Is it embarrassing?”  
  
“Hmph.”  
  
A non-response. Those are her favorite. They’re her usual go-to, with Vaseraga when he’s praising her with a pat to the head, with Eustace when he’s reprimanding her, with Zeta when they’re out shopping—but with him, it invites an altogether different reaction.  
  
He wants to investigate it further.  
  
Her dark hair falls down in waves, it veils them. His own hair is a pool of silver, she’s already expressed her envy over the texture and length. There’s a bit of an overlay, she joked about keeping her hair pulled back if she was going to get serious about teaching him but that train of thought was just as quickly abandoned. They stay like that, for a moment too long. She gets anxious. When they look at each other she’s the first one to look away, she busies herself with kisses.  
  
Cassius has read his fair share of encyclopedias on fossil dweller behavior, but his home language, as efficient and preferable to the long winded means of communication these creatures prided themselves on, did not prepare him for the sensation. It’s curious, really. Logic dictates that there mere act of bodily contact should not incite any further reaction. Beatrix leaves dark marks against his skin, from the base of his neck, down to his chest, and all he can think about is how would it look against her own skin. Maybe it’s an issue of reciprocity? Where do his hands go, ( _you can touch me too, y’know? i’m not made out of glass...it’s fine._ ) where is it acceptable to touch. His clothes lie in an unseemly pile and when she pulls back, his body immediately jerks forward, searching for the heat.

 

<<Awit.>>

  
This amuses her. Her expression is razor sharp, there’s a glint in her green eyes that makes him think, ah, maybe there was a miscalculation somewhere. His common tongue chokes out a monosyllabic plea. He sits up to match her, she’s on her knees, digging into the bed, keeping him in place.  
  
“Is this part of the lesson, as well?”

  
Beatrix wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him into an embrace. She is so much smaller than he is, without the armor and the biting remarks and the broken sword, when she pulls him in, it’s accompanied by a different emotion than from before. Where she threatened to main, she hoped to comfort. Cassius rests his head in the crook of her neck, and returns the gesture, he wraps his arms around her waist. She is warm. Every bit of her, and when he thumbs the waistband of her shorts, she relents.  
  
“W-wait a second!” It’s a complete and utter return to square one.  
  
“Was this not a night visit where you taught me the means of fossil dweller customs in a show of cultural exchange?”  
  
Beatrix pinches him until she’s satisfied with his non-apology. He twists a strand of her hair between his index finger, and when they lie down together, she takes most of the blankets.    
  
“I don’t understand.”  
  
“What?” It’s a sleepy response. He leans down to press a kiss against her temple. She’s surprised by the gesture, but it seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

  
“Why this excites you so. I feel that there’s no actual methodology to this and that it serves no actual purpose.”  
  
She thinks about it, before shrugging her shoulders. “It’s just how things are. When you want to show someone you care, and words don’t really work.”  
  
How simple.  
  
“Then, this was...?”  
  
“Well, you kept asking about what you should do about the Eustace situation! I thought it’d be easier to just...”

She scrambles for words, and their conversation from the morning comes back to haunt her, surely, when she confidently asked him to meet her in his room for a practice run of what he needed to do the next time he saw Eustace in the infirmary.  
  
“I do not recall making a “situation” out of it...” She ignores his comment and traces sigils into his chest. He doesn’t recognize these symbols, and makes note to ask about them tomorrow morning, before he slips back out into the infirmary.  
  
“You were reading all of the captain’s really bad romance guidebooks.”  
  
Ah, yes. Ilsa’s collection was a sprawling behemoth. To think the fossil dwellers had such an intensive catalog, befitting of their complicated existences.  
  
“Those were for leisure.” A pause. Their breathing slows, synchronizes. “And your romantic advice is nothing to praise, either.”  
  
Another sigh. Beatrix makes herself comfortable, and Cassius watches her. She fights sleep, and it would be considered endearing by anyone else, he’s sure. The way she curls in. His arm is going to be numb if he leaves it wrapped around her, but he does not want to let go.  
  
A conundrum.  
  
His thoughts wander to the erune with the cold stare. He thinks about pinning him down, not with the same enthusiasm Beatrix showed, he’s far more efficient. He has an idea now, there’s no need to hold back. But he also thinks about the woman who collapsed a god.  
  
He raises his left hand to touch his earring. His right arm is already in the first stages of discomfort but Beatrix is warm and soft. Despite the trinket’s technical use, he has noticed that the women of the Society are partial to gifts. In that case...perhaps…he leaves himself at the mercy of his thoughts.

  
Sleep takes him as well.  
  
.  
.  
.  
  
When he wakes up, he realizes he is alone. Beatrix is gone and there is little evidence of her existence from the night prior. A blue ribbon makes a home on the nightstand.  
  
“We were wondering where you were.”  
  
He realizes that he is not alone, and the voice makes a chill run down his spin. It’s a pleasant sensation nonetheless.  
  
“Ah, my apologies. I seem to have gotten absorbed in my research.”  
  
Eustace’s grimace is a permanent feature of his existence. His ears twitch.

  
“Right, and that’s how you ended up here.”  
  
Despite this, he talks so much more, even if it is to berate him. Cassius fixes his shirt, and brushes his hair back with painstaking care. He does not break eye contact as he wipes lipstick from his cheek.

  
“There was a bit of a complication.”  
  
He rises from the bed and Eustace watches him cross the room. When Cassius reaches the door, the erune leans forward and hisses against his ear.  
  
“If I so much as hear Beatrix cry because of you, I will let Zeta tear you from limb to limb.”  
  
It is a dark promise and Cassius smiles thinly, but not before pressing a hand against his cheek.  
  
“I do not think you will not have to worry about that.”  
  
It’s a logical conclusion, what happens next.  
  
.  
.  
.  
  
Beatrix visits him in the infirmary with a freshly baked loaf of bread and an array of jams. She can’t hold her laughter back when she sees Cassius with his new bandages and bruises.  
  
“Y’know, for someone so smart, you’re real stupid.” She manages to get her thoughts out nicely. Cassius taps his chin. Well, that could be true by their standards. There is a lot he needs to learn. The laceration on his cheek from dodging Flamek stings.

  
“So, you took what we learned and immediately tried to woo Eustace, walking perpetual coldness, and he took it as an invitation to fight? When I tell Zeta about this, she’s really going to lose her mind.”  
  
Cassius would cross his arms over his chest but he was currently covered in tubes.  
  
“It’s fine. You should see how I left him.”  
  
“He’s probably coddled in danchou’s arms right now. She’s got it real baaaad.”  
  
Beatrix snorts and prepares some toast. Cassius interjects when she only uses two kinds of jams.  
  
“Wait, I want this one, too.”  
  
“I can’t believe you’re demanding stuff now, you’re getting really spoiled.” She whines but does as asked anyways. “When I’m in the hospital Zeta’s the one who always stays with me, and she brings the hottest gossip but since I’m...always here it gets a little stale, y’know.”  
  
She hums to herself, and when she’s done, Cassius bites down on the delicacy.  
  
“Anyways. you’re all set. I’m off to go with Zeta to Lumacie. Something came up, so try and behave.” She sticks her tongue out, and dusts off breadcrumbs from her new uniform.  
  
Cassius waves her off.  
  
The entire situation was bizarre, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t growing fond of their chats. With that conclusion, he reaches for his next novel.  
  
“Fossil dwellers really are...so unnecessarily complicated.” He bites down on his tongue as he reads the next installment of “ _How to Make Him Yours in 50 Days_ ”.


End file.
